2. The distinctive characteristic of their settlement is the introduction of the civilization of Europe into a wilderness, without bringing with it the political institutions of Europe. The arts, sciences, and literature of England came over with the settlers. That great portion of the common law which regulates the social and personal relations and conduct of men, came also.

3. The jury came; the habeas corpus came; the testamentary power came; and the law of inheritance and descent came also, except that part of it which recognizes the rights of primogeniture, which either did not come at all, or soon gave way to the rule of equal partition of estates among children.

4. But the monarchy did not come, nor the aristocracy, nor the Church, as an estate of the realm. Political institutions were to be framed anew, such as should be adapted to the state of things. But it could not be doubtful what should be the nature and character of these institutions. A general social equality prevailed among the settlers, and an equality of political rights seemed the natural, if not the necessary consequence.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

SECTION III.

RECITATIONS AND READINGS: POETRY.

1. THE CROWDED STREET.

1. Let me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting tráin,
Amid the sound of steps that beat |
The murmuring walks | like áutumn ràin.

2. How fast the flitting figures | come!
The mild, the fierce, the stòny fàce;

Sóme | bright with thoughtless smiles, and sóme |
Where secret tèars | have left their trace.

3. They páss-to toil, to strife, to rèst;

To halls in which the feast | is spread;
To chambers where the funeral guést |
In silence sits beside the dead!

4. And some to happy homes repair,

Where children pressing cheek to cheek,
With mute carésses | shall decláre |
The tenderness | they cannot speak.

5. And some, who walk in cálmness hére,

Shall shudder when they reach the door |
Where one who made their dwelling déar,
Its flower, its light, is seen no mòre.

6. Youth, with pale cheek | and slender fráme,
And dreams of greatness in thine eye!
Goest thou to build an early náme,

Or early in the task | to die?

7. Keen son of trade, with eager brów!
Who is now fluttering | in thy snàre?
Thy golden fórtunes, tówer they nów,
Or mélt the glittering spires | in àir?

8. Who of this crowd | to-night | shall tread |
The dance | till daylight gleam again?
Whó | sorrow o'er the untimely dead?

Whó | writhe | in throes | of mórtal páin ?
9. Sóme | famine-struck, shall think how long |
The cold dark hours, how slow | the light;
And sóme, who flaunt amid the thróng,

Shall hide in dens of shame | to-night. 10. Each, where his tasks or pleasures cáll, They páss, and heed each other not.

There is who heeds, who holds them áll,
I

In His large love | and boundless thought. 11. These struggling tides | of life | that seem | In wayward, aimless course to ténd,

Are éddies | of the mighty stream |
That rolls to its appointed end.

2. THE BUILDERS.

1. All are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time;
Sóme with massive deeds | and great,
Some with ornaments | of rhyme.

2. Nothing | useless is | or lòw ;

Each thing in its place | is bèst ;
And what seems | but idle shów |
Strengthens and supports the rèst.
3. For the structure | that we raise,
Time is with materials | filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays |

Are the blocks | with which we build.

4. Truly shape | and fashion thèse;

Leave no yawning gaps | between ;

BRYANT.

Think not, because no man sées,
Such things will remain unsèen.

5. In the elder days | of árt,

Builders wrought | with greatest cáre | Each minute and unseen pàrt; |

For the gods are èverywhere.

6. Let us do our work | as wèll,

Both the unseen | and the sèen;

Make the house, where góds | may dwell,
Beautiful, entíre, and clean.

7. Else our lives | are incomplète,

Standing in these walls of Time;
Broken stairways, where the feet |
Stumble as they seek to climb.

8. Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm | and ample báse,
And | ascending and secúre |
Shall to-morrow | find its plàce.

9. Thus alone | can we attain |

To those turrets, where the eye |
Sees the world | as one vast pláin,
And one boundless réach | of sky.

3. PSALM OF LIFE.

1. Tell me not in mournful númbers,
Life is but an empty dréam;
For the soul is dead that slúmbers,
And things are not | what they seem.

2. Life is real! Life | is earnest!
And the grave | is not its goal;
Dust thou árt, to dust retúrnest,
Was not spoken | of the soul.

3. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act that each to-morrow |
Finds us farther than to-dày.

4. Art | is lóng, and Time | is flèeting,

And our hearts, though stout and bráve, Still, like muffled drums, are beating | Funeral marches | to the grave.

5. In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cáttle;
Be a hero in the strife!

6. Trust no Fúture, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past | bùry its dead!
Act-act in the living Prèsent!

Heart within, and Gód | o'erhead.

7. Lives of great men | all remind us |
We can make our lives sublime,
And, depárting, leave behind us |
Foot-prints on the sands of time.

8. Foot-prints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn máin
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother-
Seeing, shall take heart again.

9. Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart | for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to lábor | and to wait.

LONGFELLOW.